About Ohio Rights Group: General Counsel: Don E. Wirtshafter
Don E Wirtshafter practices law in Athens, Ohio. Don started the Ohio Hempery in 1990, America’s first hemp products merchant. He saw it as a creative solution to the environmental and criminal problems that frequented his Athens,Ohio law office. Don started inventing products and developing companies that produced a wide variety of consumer goods from hemp seeds and fiber. He reasoned that if he could get people wearing hemp clothing or rubbing hemp oil on their bodies,it would change their perception of Cannabis. His first product was paper made from Russian hemp fiber. Soon the Hempery was printing catalogs on the paper with hemp oil based ink.
Working with Carol Miller, Don co-wrote and published The Hemp Seed Cookbook (1991),the book that re-introduced the world to hemp as a food source. The cookbooks were sold with one-pound bags of hemp seeds. The multi-ton shipments of seeds soon caused the Ohio Hempery to outgrow its home in the law office. The operation moved into an old hotel and general store in the small village of Guysville,Ohio in 1993. Working with Spectrum Naturals,Inc. of Petaluma, California,Wirtshafter created the first edible grade of hemp seed oil. After Wirtshafter published journal articles about the incredible nutrition in hemp seeds and hemp seed oil,the product attracted the attention of physicians such as Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Udo Erasmus. Hemp Seed Oil is now sold in over 1000 natural food stores.
From 1993 until 1998,the Ohio Hempery operated a modern oil-pressing factory that has become a huge consumer of hemp seeds. In 1998,the facility moved to Manitoba,Canada to be closer to the source of hemp. Don serves as technical consultant to a variety of industries entering into the Hemp Industry. He served as the “Hempmeister” for Hempen Ale,the award-winning beverage from the Frederick Brewing Company.
Don E Wirtshafter
Wirtshafter Law Office
6998 SR 329
Guysville, OH 45735
740 591 4557